Eiizehu GiborTeach Jewish values through the lives of real heroes who live them.Traditional Jewish heroes like Hannah Szenes and Albert Einstein join new heroes like Debbie Friedman, Natalie Portman, and Rabbi Harold Schulweis.Challenge students to apply Jewish values in their own lives.Teacher’s guide offers experiential activities that bring heroes and values to life.Empowering your students to live Jewish values is essential. For Jews it is about being a person worthy of emulation. It’s about knowing how to do the right thing, how to make a contribution to the world, and how to be a mensch, and how to live up to being created in God’s image.
We live in a world where kids need heroes. They need them because values are best learned from people who live them. They need them because there is a shortage of values in the world in which they live.
Eizehu Gibor: Living Jewish Values is a new approach to Jewish heroes. It starts with values and then lets Jewish role models tell their own stories of living those values. Read Albert Einstein’s own words on being a humble person, and listen to Rabbi Harold Schulweis’ sermon about why we have an obligation to fix the world.
This is also a book about telling the stories of Jewish heroes whose stories are worth knowing but are seldom told. Your students can be inspired by the story of Regina Jonas, the world’s first woman rabbi, who struggled to teach about living a Jewish life during the holocaust. They’ll grapple with the importance of shmirat haguf (taking care of the body) along with Lenny Krayzelburg, a gold-medal swimmer, world-class swim teacher, and outspoken critic of steroid use.
Eizehu Gibor: Living Jewish Values is powerful because it starts with values. Each chapter of the book is organized around a Jewish value, and introduces students to heroes who live that value. Using traditional (and not-so-traditional) texts students begin to unpack the value and explore what our tradition teaches. Then, students are challenged to apply it to their own lives by examining the stories and words of important Jewish role models.
Did you know that Natalie Portman isn’t just a Jewish actress, but also a tzedakah hero? How can Debbie Friedman and Craig Taubman help us to sing praise to God by finding our own voices? What’s Jewish about owning a football team? These questions are at the heart of Eizehu Gibor: Living Jewish Values, and they can be at the heart of your students’ classroom, too.
Click here if you would like to watch the video intro for teachers and educators.
| Value | Role Model |
| Tikkun Olam | Rabbi Harold Schulweis and Janice Kaminer Reznick |
| Shimirat ha-Tevah | David Ben-Gurion and Kibbutz Lotan |
| Shmirat ha-Guf | The Maccabiah Games and Lenny Krayzelburg |
| Rodef Shalom | Yitzhak Rabbin and The Four Chaplains |
| Zikaron | Elie Wiesel and Dov Noy |
| Kol Yisrael Averim Zeh ba-Zeh | Robert & Myra Kraft and Gershom Sizomu |
| Tzionut | Theodor Herzl and Golda Meir |
| Ometz Lev | Regina Jonas and Rabbi Leo Baeck |
| Tzedek Tzedek Tirdof | Justice Louis Brandeis and Abraham Joshua Heschel |
| T'shuvah | Mark Borovitz and John Paul II |
| Anavah | Albert Einstein and Moses |
| Shiru l'Adonai | Debbie Friedman and Craig Taubman |
| Kiddush ha-Shem | Hannah Szenes and Hank Greenberg |
| Pikuah Nefesh | Henrietta Szold and Jonas Salk |
| Tzedakah | Danny Siegel and Natalie Portman |
| Talmud Torah | Rebecca Gratz and Nehama Leibowitz |
Joel Grishaver hero heros heroes value jewish heroes jewish values